The advent of non-combustion smoking articles has brought about construction considerations that were not faced in the manufacture of conventional smoking articles. Such non-combustion smoking articles have the basic appearance of conventional cigarettes; however, beyond the similarity, they are very different.
Non-combustion smoking articles may consist of a short combustible fuel element and a flavor bed. The fuel element may be mounted in one end of a reflective inner sleeve in such a manner that it extends from that end of the sleeve. The flavor bed is contained within the inner sleeve and held in place by structures disposed across the inside diameter of the inner sleeve.
The inner sleeve, which has the fuel element extending from one end and the flavor bed contained within it, is enclosed by an air permeable outer sleeve. An end cap is fixed at the lighting end of the smoking article. The outer sleeve may consist of a single laminate structure, or a separate outside and inside structure.
The single laminate structure has a metal foil layer and a porous paper layer. When the outer sleeve is formed, the porous paper is disposed at the outside diameter and the metal foil at the inside diameter. The aluminum foil disposed at the inside diameter is used to reflect the heat radiated by a fuel element toward the interior of the smoking article.
When the outer sleeve consists of two separate structures, the outside structure is a porous plug wrap tube and the inside structure is a laminate metal foil structure that acts as a reflective heat shield.
The outer sleeve, with the combination within it that includes the fuel element, flavor bed, and inner sleeve, has a thin-walled tube fitted to its nonlighting end. This tube, which functions as an expansion chamber, serves as the mouthend of the smoking article. The distal end of this tube may be fitted with a filter.
One of the problems that has been faced in the construction of lightweight paper or laminate tubes is precision cutting these tubes. Co-pending application Ser. No. 07/494,761, which is commonly assigned, is directed to an apparatus that forms lightweight, thin-walled tubes. However, in constructing non-combustion smoking articles there is also a need to cut the tubes within fine tolerances so that the non-combustion smoking article may be mechanically assembled with precision assembly machinery. If the tubes are not precision cut to a predetermined length, it may result in machinery jamming or at best low output of completed smoking articles.
The present invention overcomes these problems and provides an apparatus for precision cutting lightweight, thin-walled tubes that are suitable for use in the manufacture of non-combustion smoking articles.